Do You Have To Touch Every Conversation

There’s a recurring thread in the social media circles that goes something like this: “Seth Godin doesn’t use Twitter. He doesn’t get it.” And “Seth Godin doesn’t allow comments. He’s not in the conversation.” Okay, first, Seth explained why he doesn’t have comments 2.5 years ago. He’s probably explained why he doesn’t use Twitter, and he told me why at the Inbound Marketing Summit a few months ago.

I get asked these things sometimes, too. One reason is that I don’t like Plurk. I also don’t like Pownce, Jaiku, and several other platforms that people all like and think are perfectly serviceable. I hang out a bit on FriendFeed, but not as much as the allstars. I don’t hang out on SocialMedian, but that’s not too bad a service either.

I belong to several Facebook groups where I don’t really comment that often. I belong to a handful of Ning groups, too. Some Yahoogroups, some Google Groups.

Getting a feeling yet?

You and I are doing business in Twitter. You and I are doing things on XYZ platform. There are gazillions of other conversations that I’m not touching, that Seth isn’t touching, that Scoble or Kawasaki or whoever the heck you want to put in the *.person.who.should.join.the.conversation should be touching.

But is that really the goal? Or is the goal to fish where your fish are, to do what you plan to do, and to do it well?